By Julian Sanchez
It’s been almost four years since the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 put President Bush’s warrantless wiretap program on legal footing by authorizing broad, programmatic surveillance of Americans’ international communications. The only thing the public really knows about it so far is that it was almost immediately misused, resulting in “significant and systemic” overcollection of [...]
Mass Surveillance: No Need for Debate? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Jim Harper
We were all very excited about the Facebook IPO last week (I guess), and Washington, D.C. wants to have its part in the action. This Politico article, “Facebook IPO Pits …
Joe Barton, Meet Alessandro Acquisti is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Jim Harper
The government’s troops are rallying behind the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. “After the House voted this month to defund a major part of the U.S. Census Bureau, the agency …
It’s Illegal to Say ‘None of Your Damn Business’ is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Trevor Burrus
Available today is my new policy analysis, “If You Love Something, Set it Free: A Case for Defunding Public Broadcasting.” As a long-time fan of public broadcasting, particularly NPR, it has …
If You Love Something, Set It Free: A Case for Defunding Public Broadcasting is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Andrew J. Coulson
Since 2005, the Census Bureau has administered a set of probing questions to a large random sample of Americans each year. It’s called the American Community Survey, participation is mandatory, …
‘Useful’ Idiots and the American Community Survey is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Jim Harper
The ACLU’s Chris Calabrese notes that nominations to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board were forwarded from the Senate Judiciary Committee to the full Senate this morning. Congress created the Board in August 2007, and we have waited, and waited, and waited while the Bush and Obama administrations neglected to appoint anyone to it. Calabrese [...]
I Second That Skepticism is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Jason Kuznicki
In the struggle between liberty and power, technologies are rarely neutral. So where does the Internet fall? On the hopeful side, there’s the defeat of SOPA, the Arab Spring, and the ongoing struggle for liberalization in China, to name just three. But we’ve also seen serious threats to privacy and civil liberties at home, Internet [...]
Does Internet Activism Work? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Jim Harper
It’s a good bet that news of a new thwarted underwear bomber will underlie more than one argument for the strip-search machines American travelers encounter even at the domestic terminals of our airports. According to the AP: The plot involved an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit [...]
New Underwear Bomb, New Threat Information is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Jim Harper
New Hampshire has been a bellwether state in national ID debates before. I wrote about its push-back against the E-Verify federal background check system in a recent post entitled “Cardless National ID and the E-Verify Rebellion.” The bill that was the subject of that post, HB 1549 by Rep. Seth Cohn (R-Merrimack 6), has now [...]
New Hampshire Says No to National ID is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Jim Harper
Congress is considering H.R. 5050, the Social Networking Online Protection Act, which would prohibit employers from requiring or requesting that employees provide a user name, password, or other means for accessing a personal account on a social networking website. Because Every Dumb Idea Should Be Illegal is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato [...]
Because Every Dumb Idea Should Be Illegal is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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